RIGOR

Even our "best" schools are jailing

to prepare students for 21st-century
careers and citizenship.
Tony Wagner

n the new global economy, with n:iany jobs being either

automated or "off-shored," what skills will students
need to build successful careers? What skills will they
need to he good citizens? Are these two education goals
in conflict?
To examine these questions, I conducted research beginning
with conversations with several hundred business, nonprofit,
philanthropic, and education leaders. With a clearer picture of
the skills young people need, I then set out to learn whether
U.S. schools are teaching and testing the skills that matter
most. 1 observed classrooms in some of the nation's most
highly regarded suburban schools to find out whether our
"best" was, in fact, good enough for our children's future.
What I discovered on this joumey may surprise you.

The Schooling Students Need

One of my first conversations was with Clay Parker, president
of the Chemical Management Division of BOC Edwardsa
company that, among other things, makes machines and
supplies chemicals for the manufacture of microelectronics
de\ces. He's an engineer by training and the head of a technical business, so when 1 asked him about the skills he looks
ibr when he hires young people, I was taken aback by his
answer.
"First and foremost, I look for someone who asks good
questions," Parker responded. "We can teach them the tech-

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EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP/OCTOBER 2008

nical stuff, but we can't teach them how to ask good questionshow to think."
"What other skuls are you iooking for?" I asked, expecting
that he'd jump quickly to content expertise.
'1 want people who can engage in good discussionwho
can look me tn the eye and have a give and take. All of our
work is done in teams. You have to know how to work well

Redefined
Today's students need to master seven sunival skills lo
thrive in the new world of work. And these skills are the same
ones that will enable students to hecome productive citizens who contrihute to solving some of the most pressing
issues we face in the 21st century.
1. Critical Thinking and Problem Solving
To compete in the new global economy, companies
need their workers to think ahout how to continuously
improve their products, processes, or services. Over
and over, executives told me that the heart of critical
thinking and prohlem solving is the ahility to ask the
right questions. As one senior executive from Dell said,
"Yesterday's answers won't solve today's problems."
Ellen Kumata, managing partner at Cambria Associates,
explained the extraordinary pressures on leaders today.
"The challenge is this: How do you do things that haven't
been done before, where you have to rethink or think anew?
It's not incremental improvement any more. The markets are
changing too fast."

with others. But you also have to know how to engage

customersto find out what their needs are. If you can't
engage others, then you won't leam whal you need to know."
I initially doubted whether Parker's views were representative
of business leaders in general. But after interviewing leaders in
settings from Apple to Unilever to the U.S. Army and reviewing
the research on workplace skills, 1 came to understand that the
world of work has changed profoundly

2. Collaboration and Leadership

Teamwork is no longer just about working with others in your
building. Christie Pedra, CEO of Siemens, explained, "Technology has allowed for \artual teams. We have teams working
on major infrastructure projects that are all over ihe U.S. On
other projects, you're working v^th people all around the
world on solving a software problem. Every week they're on a
variety of conference calls; they're doing Web casts; they're
doing net meetings."
Mike Summers, vice president for Global Talent Management at Dell, said that his greatest concern was young people's
lack of leadership skills. "Kids just out of school have an
amazing lack of preparedness in general leadership skills and
collaborative skills," he explained. "They lack the ahility to
influence."

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3. Agility and Adaptability

Clay Parker explained ihal anyone who
works al BOC Edwards today "has to
think, be flexible, change, and use a
variety of tools to solve new problems.
We change what we do all the time. I
can guarantee the job I hire someone to
do will change or may not exist in the
future, so this is why adaptability and
learning skills are more important than
technical skills."
4. Initiative and Entrepreneualism
Mark Chandler, senior \ce president and
general counsel at Cisco, was one of the
strongest proponents of initiative: "I say
to my employees, if you try five things
and get all five of them right, you may be
failing. If you try 10 things, and get eight
of them right, you're a hero. You'll
never be blamed for failing to reach a
stretcb goal, but you will be blamed for
not trying. One of the problems of a
large company is risk aversion. Our
challenge is how to create an entrepreneurial culture in a larger organization."
5. Effective Oral and Written
Communication
Mike Summers of Dell said, "We are
routinely surprised at the difficulty
some young people have in communicating: verbal skills, written skills, presentation skills. They have difficulty
being clear and concise; it's hard for
them to create focus, energy, and
passion around the points they want to
make. If you're talking to an exec, the
first thing you'll get asked if you haven't
made it perfectly clear in the first 60
seconds of your presentation is, 'What
do you want me to take away from this
meeting?' They don't know how to
answer that question."
Summers and other leaders from
various companies were not necessarily
complaining about young people's poor
grammar, punctuation, or spellingthe
things we spend so much time teaching
and testing in our schools. Although
writing and speaking correctly are obvi22

The heart of critical thinking and problem

solving is the ability to ask the right questions.
ously important, the complaints 1 heard
most frequently were about fuzzy
thinking and young people not knowing
how to write with a real voice.
6. Accessing and Analyzing
information
Employees in the 21st century have to
manage an astronomical amount of
infonnation daily As Mike Summers
told me, "There is so much infonnation
available that it is almost too much, and
if people aren't prepared to process the
information effectively it almost freezes
them in their steps."
It's not only the sheer quantity of
infonnation that represents a challenge,
but also how rapidly the information is

EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP/OCTOBER 2008

changing. Quickhow many planets

are there? In the early 1990s, 1 heard
then-Harvard University president Neil
Rudenstine say in a speech that the halflife of knowledge in the humanities is
10 years, and in math and science, it's
only two or three years. 1 wonder what
he would say it is today
7. Curiosity and imagination
Mike Summers told me, "People
who've learned to ask great questions
and have learned to be inquisitive are
the ones who move the fastest in our
environment because they solve the
biggest problems in ways that have the
most impact on innovation."
Daniel Pink, the author of A Whole

New Mind, observes ihat with

increasing abundance, people want
unique products and services: "For
businesses it's no longer enough to
create a product that's reasonably
priced and adequately functional. It
must also be beautiful, unique, and
meaningful."' Pink notes that developing young people's capacities for
imagination, creativity, and empathy
vi'ill be increasingly important for
maintaining the United States' competitive advantage in the future.

The Schooling Students Get

I've spent time observing in classrooms
across the United States for more than
20 years. Here is a sampling of what
I've seen recently. These examples come
from secondary honors and advanced
placement (AP) classes in three school
systems that enjoy excellent reputations
because of their high test scores.

AP Chemistry
Students work in groups of
two and three mixing
chemicals according to
directions written on
the chalkboard. Once
the mixtures are
prepared, students
heat the concociion
with Bunsen burners.
According to the
directions on the
board, they are
supposed to record their
observations on a worksheet.
I watch a group of three
young men whose mixture is
giving off a thin spiral of smoke as it's
being heatedsomething that none of
the other students' beakers are doing.
One student looks back at the chalkboard and then at his notes. Then all
three stop what they are doing, apparently waiting for the teacher to come
help them.
"What's happening to your mixture?" 1
ask the group.
"Dunno," one mutters. "We must have
mixed it up v^rong."
"What's your hypothesis about what
happenedwhy it's smoking?"
The three look at one another blankly,
and the student who has been doing all
the speaking looks at me and shrugs.
AP U.S. Government
The teacher is reviev^ng answers to a
sample test that the class took the
previous day The test contains 80
multiple-choice questions related to the
functions and branches of the federal
government.
When he's finished, he says "OK, now
let's look at some sample free-response
questions from previous years' AP
exams." He flips the overhead projector
on and reads from the text of a transparency: "Give three reasons why the Iron
Triangle may he ctirzed as undemocratic.

How would you answer this question?"

No one replies.
"OK, who can give me a definition of
the Iron Triangle?"
A student pipes up, "The militaryindustrial-congressional complex."
"OK, so what would be three reasons
why it would be considered undemocratic?" The teacher calls on a student In
the front row who has his hand half
raised, and he answers the question in a
voice that we can't hear o\'er the hum of
the projector's fan.
"Good, Now let's look at another one."
The teacher flips another transparency
onto the projector "Now this question is
about bureaucracy. Let me tell you how
to answer this one. . . ."
AP English
The teacher explains that the class is
going to review students' literature notes
for the advanced placement exam next
week. The seven students are deeply
slouched in their chairs, arranged in a
semicircle around the teacher's desk.
The teacher asks, "Now what is
Virginia Woolf saying about the balance
between an independent life versus a
social life?"
Students ruffle through their notebooks. Finally, a young woman, reading
from her notes, answere, "Mrs. Ramsey
sought meaning from social interactions."
"Yes, that's right. Now what about Lily,
the artist? How did she construct
meaning?"
"Through her painting," another
student mumbles, her face scrunched
close to her notes.
"So what is Woolf saying about the
choices these two women have made,
and what each has sacrificed?"
No reply The teacher sighs, gets up,
goes to the board, and begins writing.
A Rare Class
Once in a great while, observe a class
in which a teacher is using academic
content to develop students' core
competencies. In such a class, the
contrast with the others is stark.

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At the beginning of the period in an

Algebra II class, the teacher writes a
problem on the board. He turns to the
students, who are sitting in desks
arranged in squares of four that face one
another "You haven't seen this kind of
problem before," he explains. "Solving it
will require you to use concepts from
both geometry and algebra. Each group
will try to develop at least two different
ways to solve this problem. After all the
groups have finished, I'll randomly
choose someone from each group who
will write one of your proofs on the
board, and I'll ask thai person to explain
the process your group used."
The groups quickly go to work.
Animated discussion takes place as
students pull the problem apart and talk
about different ways to solve it. While
they work, the teacher circulates from
group to group. When a student asks a
question, the teacher responds with
another question: "Have you considered , . ,?" "Why did you assume
that?" or simply "Have you asked
someone in your group?"
What makes this an effective lesson
a lesson in which students are learning a
number of the seven survival skills while
also mastering academic content? First,
students are given a complex, multistep

problem that is different from any

they've seen in the past. To solve it,
they have to apply critical-thinking and
problem-solving skills and call on previously acquired knowledge from both
geometr)' and algebra. Mere memorization won't get them far. Second, they
have to find two ways to solve the
problem, which requires initiative and
imagination. Third, they have to explain
their proofs using effective communication skills. Fourth, the teacher does not
spoon-feed students the answers. He
uses questions to push students'
thinking and build their tolerance for
ambiguity Finally, because the teacher
announces in advance that he'll
randomly call on a student to show how
the group solved the problem, each
student in every group is held accountable. Success requires teamwork.

Rigor for the 21st Century

Across the United States, 1 see schools
that are succeeding at making adequate
yearly progress but failing our students.
Increasingly, there is only one
curriculum: test prep. Of the hundreds
of classes that I've observed in recent
years, fewer than I in 20 were engaged
in instruction designed to teach students
to think instead of merely drilling for the
test.
To teach and test the skills that our
students need, we must first redefine
excellent instruction. It is not a checklist of teacher behaviors and a model
lesson that covers content standards. It is working with
colleagues to ensure that all
students master the skills they
need to succeed as lifelong
learners, workers, and citizens.
I have yei to talk to a recent
graduate, college teacher,
community leader, or business
leader who said that not
knowing enough academic
content was a problem. In my
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interviews, everyone stressed the importance of critical thinking, communication skills, and collaboration.
We need to use academic content to
teach the seven survival skills every day,
at every grade level, and in every class.
And we need to insist on a combination
of locally developed assessments and
new nationally normed, online lests^such as the College and Work Readiness
Assessment (www.cae.org)that
measure students' analytic-reasoning,
critical-thinking, problem-solving, and
writing skills.
It's time to hold ourselves and all of
our students to a new and higher standard of ngor, defined according to 21stcentury criteria. It's time for our profession to advocate for accountability
systems that will enable us to teach and
test the skills that matter most. Our
students' futures are at stake.
, D. (2005). A whole new mind:
Movingfrom the information age to the conceptual age. New York: Riverhead Books, pp.
32-33.
Copyright 2008 Tony Wagner.
Tony Wagner is Codirector of the Change
Leadership Group at the Harvard Graduate School of Education: tony_wagner
harvard.edu; www.schoolchange.org.
The themes of this article are discussed
more fully in his book The Global Achievetnent Gap: Why Even Our Best Schools
Don't Teach the New Survival Skills Our
Children Needand What We Can Do
About It (Basic Books. 2008).